Mother Teresa, sister and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, died on the 5th of September 1997 at around 21:30 local time of a heart attack.

Mother Teresa's path through life

Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha Boiaxhin to Albanian parents in Skopje in what was then Macedonia. As a young sister in her order, her first work was teaching in a snobby school in Calcutta. On a journey through Calcutta she experienced what can only be described as a second calling. She left her order and began to care and help for poor on the streets of Calcutta. Her aim was to show them a little love in their last hours. In 1950 she founded her order called "Missionaries of Charity", which today together with a small men's section cares for the poor and outcast worldwide. Mother Teresa's method is based on love. The sight of her bended figure in a white sari was the manifestation of God's love for millions across several generations. Mother Teresa herself was hard-headed, full of humor and had a remarkably simple faith. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and the American Medal of Liberty in 1980. Many saw her as a saint, but she was not interested in politics and didn't write manifestos. Instead she shook the hands of AIDS victims and stroked the heads of the dying. For as long as she could travel she always took a plastic bag with the essentials and a few cheap roses or medals to present to others. (...)

Recognition and reaction to the death of Mother Teresa

Pope John Paul II. held a mass at the Papal summer residence of Castle Gandolfo on the 6th of September, the day after the death of Mother Teresa. It was announced that the Pope had received the news with a deep sense of pain and sadness the previous evening. The Pope and Mother Teresa knew each other well. In a telegram of condolence to Calcutta, John Paul called Teresa a woman of unshakable faith and a gift to the church and the world. We would always remember her extraordinary spiritual vision. He mentioned her again in his Saturday audience: According to the Pope she was a rare example of charity and unforgettable proof of love to the outcast. John Paul went on to say that Mother Teresa had made a lasting impression upon our century. She will be remembered as a brave woman who announced the gospel of love to the whole world. (...)

The deceased was brought to the Catholic St. Thomas Church of Calcutta on the 6th of September. Her corpse was preserved there in a glass coffin. The Indian government announced that the Nobel Peace Prize laureate was to be honored with a state funeral on the 13th of September. According to the government the decision had been made because she had served the Indian people, despite never holding official office. The Indian President was also on hand to pay his last respects at her coffin. Almost all of India's newspapers carried the news of her death on their front pages. In Mother Teresa's homeland of Albania and in Kosovo in Serbia a national day of mourning has been declared. Mother Teresa's funeral is to be held in a stadium in the multi-religious town of Ritus. This has just been decided by the Missionary of Charity and the city of Calcutta. The service will include texts from the Old and New Testaments as well as a psalm. According to sources in Calcutta, the service will include a flavor of several religions. John Paul has announced his official delegation to attend the funeral service for Mother Teresa. In addition to Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the delegation is to include the Indian Cardinal, Simon Lourdousamy, as well as the Papal Nuntius in New Delhi and the German Archbishop Georg Zur.
More than 100,000 people have paid their last respects to Mother Teresa in the Thomas Church in Calcutta since Sunday. Members of all castes and religions waited patiently in a queue which at times grew to over three kilometers in length, in order to spend a short moment before the corpse of the "Saint of the Poorest".

Comments on the death of Lady Di and Mother Teresa

To me the death of Mother Teresa shortly before the funeral of Princess Diana would seem to be a message. Two women, who had met each other on several occasions, both different yet admired by all: One of them beautiful, young, hungry for life, not without faults and yet open for the suffering of others. The other old furrowed and worn down and because of this admired by others. Perhaps Lady Diana thought of Mother Teresa as a message from God. And that is the way I, too, like to think of her: A message to all humanity at the end of the 20th century. In order to take her into our hearts, we have to listen. The message of God is: If you help the poor and the dying, they will shower you with gifts. The poor have a great deal to tell humanity. This is God's message.

Two rather critical questions remain unanswered about the phenomenon of Mother Teresa. Firstly, why did she never attempt to tackle the causes of poverty? She cared only for the wounds and left it to others to make sure that the wounds were not created in the first place. And, secondly, is material poverty actually a blessing for humanity? Would the world be poorer without the poor? Mother Teresa's reaction to this question was to laugh and leave it to the philosophers to answer. But she did emphasize one thing: The poorest of all people are those who grow up without love - perhaps they live in palaces - but they never experience true love from anyone. The message of God through Mother Teresa is this: All the things that one strives for each and everyday - enough to eat, a roof over one's head, a job and a car - all of these things pale into insignificance against love. And love does not mean sympathy for those whom one likes, but love to those from whom one would rather turn away, those that have been outcast. Love means a self-transformation through God into a person that is able to take the outcast in his arms. This is the message from Mother Teresa, which had also found resonance in the heart of Princess Diana. A message which, in her own way, Princess Diana had spread.